


Post-War Life of a Jewish Fist-Fighter

by Lots_O_Lemons



Category: The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Genre: Death narrates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-20 12:40:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30005013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lots_O_Lemons/pseuds/Lots_O_Lemons
Summary: What happened in the time that Max was liberated to when he saw Liesel? Here's my take on what he might've done.
Relationships: Liesel Meminger & Max Vandenburg
Comments: 2
Kudos: 1





	Post-War Life of a Jewish Fist-Fighter

It was not a sad day that I next had the pleasure of seeing Max Vandenburg again. Not a sad day in the least. Yes, there were tears. Yes, there was loss. But there had been no good days in so long, and one cannot think to call something sad when they can longer remember happy.

So no, not a sad day. Though the Jew had been liberated from a prison he was sure to be his death, he was still trapped in the troubles that clouded his mind like the smoke of buildings he preferred not to remember. The world was nearing the end of the war, and yet the one thing hurting Max the most, was himself.

***THE WORRIES OF MAX VANDENBURG***

1\. His future and what lied in it  
2\. The rest of the Vandenburgs  
3\. A certain book thief and her family

The first worry would not be relieved, not until the next time I saw poor Max, many years later; but the last two would be taken care of in the next five months of his life. It is in these five months that our story continues, on an unusually cold day late-June. Cold, but not sad.

Max had gone to every refugee camp he could find, searching for news of his family. For the first few months, there was nothing. Only the survivors of war, putting up pictures with names, crying for loved ones, reliving the horrors in their dreams.

Max was one of them. He vowed not to give up, no matter how many times the Fuhrer hit him, or how many times he awoke screaming. He wasn’t going to just survive, he was going to live. So he did. He kept looking for answers, for news, and it was in the third month that some arrived.

His mother, he’d been told, had survived Kristallnacht with his cousins, but couldn’t escape the fate that awaited her and every other Jewish German over the course of the war. He never did find out exactly what happened to her, but he knew in his heart that she was gone.

He probably always did.

As for his cousins, only one survived the whole ordeal, as Max would find out later in a letter sent nearly two years afterward. For 1945 Max, though, he was kept in the dark.

***One Question***

What would he do about it?

The answer lied in the only family he had left. The family that had sacrificed their own safety to protect him. The Huberman's. 

Max was indebted to them. To Hans, the painter that had revealed himself to be more of a teacher. To Rosa, whose strictness was only one side of the coin that made up her personality. And to Liesel. Beautiful, creative Liesel.

When Max came back to Molching, on the fifth month, he knew something had changed. It wasn’t only that the war was over, but that the people had made it out. He could see the relief on people’s faces. Of course, in some of the die-hard Nazis, there was the look of defeat in their eyes, of still-burning hatred in their souls. 

I knew they would all eventually come to me. Some still flaming hot with anger, others heavy with despair. Hitler himself was an interesting one.

Coincidentally, or perhaps not, the first person to speak to Max was one riddled with despair. Not so much as the last time we saw her, thanks to the book thief, but her face was still distant, and her hair still fluffy.

“They’re gone.”

The response fell to the ground, heavy with the lives of the Huberman’s and everyone else that had died that day, two years prior. Max just stared at the rebuilding going on around him.

After what seemed like an eternity, he whispered out three words that floated through the air and across the sky. “All of them?”

Ilsa only nodded. She clutched her jacket closer to her body. “All but Liesel Meminger.”

Max’s swampy eyes filled with hurt once again. Hans and Rosa, gone. He hadn’t had the chance to thank them again for all that they had done. He didn’t know what he would have said, but he imagined that he’d do it outside, a reference to his basement room and how he didn’t have to hide anymore. And then he’d hug them, all of them, until he felt that he could let go without completely breaking apart.

But he would have no chance. He wanted to ask what had happened, though he knew the answer, but Ilsa had started walking away.

“Excuse me!” He called out to her. “Do you know where Liesel is now?”

He expected an answer of another city, or maybe even country, but the woman just pointed. “Steiner’s,” Was all she said before walking off.

Max, clean shaven and hair brushed, stood at the door of the Steiner’s Tailor Shop. You know this next part of the story of course, when Liesel and Max embrace each other and cry. After hours of that, they spoke, for quite a long time still, and then Max left. He still had a life to figure out, after all.

For a while, he kept looking for the rest of his family. With each new refugee shelter he felt he got closer, and one day, two years after Molching, he got a letter. We know what it said, that only one of his cousins had lived, but it was news to Max. 

He read it front to back, then again, just as he had with the newspapers Liesel had gotten him so long ago. Then he folded it up, nearly memorized, and simply held it in his hands. 

Just as our Liesel had once sat with her papa on the steps of the Molching Church, Max now sat at the rubble of one, with only memories to keep him company.

The memories of stories told, of an accordion playing man and a foul-mouthed snorer, who worked together to raise a young thief. The stories of a fist-fighting Jew, who’s favorite opposers were the man that would save his life, and the man who would try to end it. The stories of a girl, a girl who lost everything and then some, and still had love to give.

The stories of people, some dead, some alive. But who still had life to live.


End file.
